At least three German crematorium urns have washed up on a Dutch beach, RTL Nieuws reported on Monday.

The third urn was found by a woman walking along the beach at Katwijk on Sunday. The others were found at Katwijk and nearby Noordwijk earlier in the weekened.  All are thought to contain the ashes of someone who died this year and their names are engraved in the aluminium lids.

According to website KustNieuws, the three urns come from the Greifswald  crematorium in Vorpommern in northeastern Germany, some 800 kilometres away.

A local German news website says that people whose ashes are being scattered at sea are usually placed in a container that dissolves in water – clearly not the case with these three urns. In Germany, people are not allowed to take urns with ashes home from crematoria.

Website KustNieuws says it will continue trying to trace the origin of the urns and solve the mystery of how they came to wash up in the Netherlands. It is now attempting to trace relatives of the people who died.